Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors
Does Lenovo put backdoors in if the Chinese government asks? "If they want backdoors globally? We don't provide them. If they want a backdoor in China, let's just say that every multinational in China does the same thing."
"We comply with local laws. If the local laws say we don't put in backdoors, we don't put in backdoors. And we don't just comply with the laws, we follow the ethics and the spirit of the laws."
And then, with a final flourish, the answer. "Likewise, if there are countries that want to have access, and there are more countries than just China, you provide what they're asking."
See also: Lenovo CEO: 'We're not a Chinese company, we're a global company'
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 20 2018, @05:11PM
Chromebooks are only one possible element of what I was describing.
But if you can put your own stuff into the cloud (Linode, Digital Ocean, etc) for a few bucks a month, then you could use just a browser. With VNC via the web browser. Log in to the chromebook as guest. At this point what does Google know about you?
* that someone initialized a chromebook
* someone used it as guest
* someone went to a certain domain name and IP address using SSL
Now I suppose the browser could then spy via screen shots, key logging, etc. But at this point we're talking a whole different level of spying than tracking you to put better ads in front of your eyeballs.
If you're worried about TLAs and APTs then you are wanting something very different. Unusual hardware. Probably no Intel / AMD management engines. Something like Qubes, etc.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.